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Let’s give Toronto Mayor Rob Ford some credit. He isn’t deliberately shaking down lobbyists to pay for his pet football charity.

It just looks that way.

That’s why this sort of thing goes against the city’s code of conduct. And Ford, of all people, should know it given his recent political near-death experience connected with a similar practice while a city councillor. Yet even as Ford was fighting a conflict-of-interest charge, and beating it on a technicality, lobbyists and others received fresh letters urging them to donate to The Rob Ford Football Foundation.

Let’s not judge too harshly. After all, the foundation is trying to help underprivileged kids. We mustn’t assume Ford is deliberately flouting the rules, as if council’s code of conduct had no bearing on him.

But it looks that way.

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And it’s utterly inappropriate. Even some lobbyists are expressing concern. They worry about possible punishment for failing to pony up. The Star’s Daniel Dale and David Rider revealed two cases on Thursday of lobbyists who received the mayor’s hand-signed appeal for money and were troubled by the request.

One, Andy Manahan, executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, was willing to go public with his concern saying there could, potentially, be “repercussions” for not paying. A second lobbyist made that point but asked not to be named.

To Manahan’s credit, he was willing to speak out. And so was Canadian National Exhibition Association chair Brian Ashton. Although not a lobbyist, he also received a letter fundraising for the foundation. Ashton described that appeal as “unnerving” given Ford’s power over civic affairs.

Let’s be fair. We don’t know that Ford would actually use his office to punish those refusing to give, or to reward donors for their generosity in supporting the foundation bearing his name.

But at least some people receiving these letters worry that he might. And that tension undermines public confidence in the way this mayor does business.

It’s obviously improper for any elected official to solicit money from lobbyists for his or her direct gain. But, for reasons outlined above, the city’s code of conduct also prohibits gifts and benefits indirectly associated with a politician’s duties. And having lobbyists pump money into a politician’s namesake charity, even for a good cause, is rightly considered an indirect benefit.

In the case that got Ford dragged before a judge, and even ordered from office before the verdict was toppled on appeal in January, he went so far as to solicit money for his charity using city hall letterhead, as if to emphasize his political clout. Ford’s official letterhead wasn’t used in this latest round of fundraising missives. But there’s no need for it. Everyone knows he’s the mayor.

Ford’s chief of staff Mark Towhey issued a statement Thursday afternoon declaring that “if errors were made, they were inadvertent.” That, at least, beats doubling down and insisting there’s nothing wrong here. Or waiting to see if the city’s integrity commissioner gets involved (as she well might) and then challenging her findings, perhaps even winding up in court again — insisting, all the while, that this mess is the work of a cabal of evil pinkos.

It would be better yet to issue another set of letters withdrawing the appeal made in Ford’s name, apologizing to anyone who felt unfairly pressured to give, and assuring the public that this apparent breach of the code won’t happen again.

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